June 17 – 21, 2013
Film Week
Leading up to Christopher Street Day and the Transgenialer Christopher Street Day, Mindpirates e.V. is screening a selection of queer films Monday to Friday in celebration of Pride Week in collaboration with jozo pr (www.jozopr.com).
Monday June 17th
Weekend
A one-night stand that becomes something more: an unconventional love story between two young men trying to make sense of their lives. On a Friday night after hanging out with his straight mates, Russell heads out to a nightclub, alone and on the pull. Just before closing time he picks up Glen. And so begins a weekend – in bars and in bedrooms, getting drunk and taking drugs, telling stories and having sex – that will resonate throughout their lives.
Tuesday June 18th
Doors: 19:30
Reading (in German): 20:00
Film: 21:30
Reading by Carolin Emcke
Carolin Emcke is a journalist, political theorist and writer. She studied philosophy, history and political science in London, Frankfurt/Main and Harvard. She has a doctorate in philosophy with a thesis book Collective Identities (Campus Publishers, Frankfurt 2000), and has been a visiting lecturer in political theory at Yale. As a staff writer for the foreign news desk of Der Spiegel (1998-2006), she has written about war crimes and human rights violations in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel, Columbia among others. Her book Echoes of Violence – Letters From a War Reporter (Princeton University Press, 2007), was named “Political Book of the Year in 2005″. Since 2004 she has been hosting the monthly discussion forum “Streitraum” at the theatre Schaubühne Berlin. Since 2007 she has been working as a publicist and international reporter. Carolin Emcke also regularly writes about photography and contemporary dance.
Carolin Emcke will read (in German) from her latest book, Wie wir begehren.
Film: Bumblefuck, USA
Directed by Aaron Douglas Johnston, 2011Distraught by the suicide of her gay friend Matt, Alexa travels from Amsterdam to her dead friend’s small American town, hoping to uncover the reasons that led Matt to take his own life. She arrives with a backpack, her video camera and intentions to make a film about what it must be like to be gay in Bumblefuck, USA. At the end of her hot summer weeks in Bumblefuck, she’s made a new special friend, clashed with others, and ultimately discovered more about herself than she could ever have imagined.
Wednesday, June 19th
Doors: 20:00
Film: 21:30
How to Survive a Plague (2012)
Documentary
Dir: David France, USA, 2012
How To Survive A Plague is the story of two coalitions – ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group) – whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time. With unfettered access to a treasure trove of never-before-seen archival footage from the 1980s and ’90s, filmmaker David France puts the viewer in the middle of the controversial actions, the heated meetings, the heartbreaking failures, and the exultant breakthroughs of heroes in the making.How To Survive A Plague was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in the 85th Academy Awards.
Thursday, June 20
Doors: 20:00
Film: 21:30
Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers sondern die Situation in der er lebt
(It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives)
Dir: Rosa von Praunheim, Germany, 1971, 67min“
Praunheim’s film is at once a pedagogical caveat and political manifesto. Following naïve country boy Daniel after he moves to Berlin and encounters a thriving gay community, Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt is a provocative look at the lives of gay men in 1970s Germany. The film follows Daniel from heteronormative behaviour to finding a sugardaddy to a job in a local gay bar, making him the most eligible bachelor in town. Through Daniel’s journey Praunheim comments on everything from the shallower tendencies in gay culture to cruising for sex in the early ’70s until Daniel meets a group of revolutionary gays who introduce him to the gay rights movement. Like many of Praunheim’s films, Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt caused a scandal in both the liberal and conservative establishment as well as in homosexual circles after it was first shown on German state television in 1973. What makes Praunheim’s work so provocative as a queer director is his fearlessness, what others call audacity, to not only point the finger at society, but also at the gay community itself as guilty of homophobia.” (Fringe Film Fest)
It Is Not the Homosexual Who is Perverse But the Society in Which He Lives
Friday, June 21
Doors: 21:00
Film: 22:00
Paris is Burning
Documentary
Dir: Jennie Livingston, USA, 1990
Paris is Burning is a visually powerful portrait of the drag competitions in the ballrooms of Harlem in New York City in the late 1980s, in which the African American and Latino LGBT community performatively staged the play with gender identities, class affiliation, sexual orientation through embodied idealised types of the American Dream. Paris Is Burning is an invaluable and critically acclaimed cult documentary of the end of the “Golden Age” of New York City drag balls, as well as a thoughtful exploration of race, class, and gender in America.
videodetective.com/movies/paris-is-burning/1767
Living Room – Wish You Were Queer Dance Party
Following the screening, move into our Friday night Living Room. DJ Loganic will spin some disco to have you burn the night away. Don’t worry, we’ll have you out in time for the parade.
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